The Lady in the Cellar

On May 9, 1879, an errand boy discovered a woman's remains in the coal cellar at 4 Euston Square, a genteel boardinghouse in a popular, respectable London neighborhood. The landlords, Mary and Severin Bastendorff, professed to be as baffled as the police as to how the body came to be there, how it went undetected for so long…and why there was a rope looped around the corpse's neck. The ensuing investigation—and resulting tabloid scandal—riveted Victorian London for months, thanks in no small part to the accusations of murder, theft, and sexual immorality hurled at the Bastendorff household. True-crime fans and history buffs alike will be intrigued by this twisting tale of "murder, scandal and insanity in Victorian Bloomsbury"! (KG)